alert! alert! alert!
By tomitomi
@tomitomi (5429)
Singapore
August 12, 2010 9:32am CST
"Hi everyone,
I want to let you all know that Fred and I have been the victims of credit card fraud this week and felt I should warn you all about the clever scam.
It works like this:
Last Wednesday I had a phone call late morning from Express Couriers to ask if I was going to be home as he had a delivery for me. He said he would there in roughly an hour. He turned up with a beautiful basket of flowers and wine. I expressed my surprise as I wasn't expecting anything like this and said I was intrigued to know who was sending me such a lovely gift. He said he was only delivering the gift and the card was being sent separately (the card has never arrived). There was a consignment note with the gift.
He went on to explain that because the gift contained alcohol he has to charge the recipient $3.50 as proof that he has actually delivered to an adult, and not left it on a door step if the recipient is out, to be stolen or taken by children. This seemed logical and I offered to get the cash.
He then said that the company required the payment to be by EFTPOS so he's not handling cash and everything is properly accounted for.
Fred was there and got his credit card and 'John' swiped the card on this small mobile machine that also had a small screen upon which Fred entered in his pin number. A receipt was printed out and given to us.
Between last Thursday and Monday $4,000 was withdrawn from our credit account at ATM machines in the north shore area. It appears a dummy credit card was made using the details in the machine and of course, they had Fred's pin number. The Bank has stopped our cards and I've been to the Police this morning, where they confirmed that it is a definite scam and many households were hit.
So PLEASE be wary of accepting a gift you're not expecting especially if the card is not with it. We've all received gifts like this and would never dream that it could be such a despicable act. Please also let other friends and relatives know.
Hopefully, these fraudsters have ceased this activity by now but you never know."
These are the exact words of a friend sent to me by email. Although this happened here where we live, thought this would be a good reminder to be VERY ALERT to everyone here in myLot and everyone who reads this. Yes, you don't have to reply to this post.
1 person likes this
17 responses
@Bluebelleangel (428)
• Philippines
18 Aug 10
Hi Tomitomi,
Your message about this kind of fraud is very important and I believe that everyone should be warned about it. Id like to ask your permission for me to copy and send this to my friends and relatives who are not on mylot.
Thanks for sharing this. Have a nice day!
1 person likes this
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
12 Aug 10
OMG!
Its really sad that such a thing happened to you. I can understand what you will be going though. I think credit card frauds are becoming popular these days and this is the reason that Visa is trying to make the credit cards a different way altogether to prevent frauds.
Now that ATM machines are being used to commit the frauds, one can also relate this to the Debit Cards and this is going to be a very serious issue. Hope you have notified the bank, the police and other agencies.
I do not have any credit cards and many a times I have faced problems. I wanted to go for one but every time, i thought it better to be without them. Now I would have to be careful with the ATM-Debit Cards too.
1 person likes this
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
12 Aug 10
Hi tomi! Wow! That is really quite an elaborate scam! They thought
of everything and had an answer to any question that you could
possibly ask! I'm not sure if I would have pulled out a credit
card because by that point I think I would have been way too
suspicious! But, I definitely believe that is one smart azz
scamer and I want to thank you for being so kind as to pass along
such a terrible email warning so that maybe others won't fall
to the same fate~
1 person likes this
@Shellyann36 (11385)
• United States
13 Aug 10
Oh I am so sorry to hear about this. I know what it is like to have your card scammed! My bank account debit card was hijacked at an atm machine and I had someone one is Washington buying stuff online. Fortunately I check my bank account every day and I caught it before it was too excessive. My bank canceled the card and I filed my report with them and they put the funds back into my account. I hope this does not happen to anyone else.
The SCAM they worked on you is very new and also smart. Thieves are becoming more high tech and learning how to earn the quick buck!
@Shellyann36 (11385)
• United States
16 Aug 10
I am glad you are spreading the word so that hopefully it will not happen to more people. I also thank you for the best response!
@bluemoonpavilion (4658)
• Singapore
12 Aug 10
Hi tomi,
I feel so sorry for your friend. It seems that these rogues are forever thinking up new ways of committing frauds and cheating people of their hard earned money. I remember my colleague also encountering something similar. The bank called her to say that a huge sum was spent overseas on a certain day and they wanted to verify it. Luckily she was able to prove that she didn't go overseas during that period and the bank didn't ask her to pay the credit card bill.
Sometimes I think we can never be too careful. Maybe if your friend had called up the gift company to verify, he might have exposed the fraud.
But what's here is one clever fraud actually: the courier company, John, the EFTPOS, they did not exist. And fraud
was the last thing in their mind. Hope this does not happen again. Thanks for dropping by.
@keep_onwatch (2680)
• India
18 Aug 10
Thank you tomitomi for sharing this. I have seen several credit card thefts, but I have to say, this one takes the cake.
@ip5217 (1655)
• Philippines
16 Aug 10
Gosh! This is scary. I hope this doesn't happen anymore. It is so surprising to hear that these scammers are so creative to think of ways to fool other people. Why can't they just get a real job? They are victimizing other people, stealing hard-earned money.
@de_toya (2429)
• Indonesia
13 Aug 10
That was so bad tomi. I am sorry for that. Thank you for posting your experience here and I hope this won't happen to the others anymore.
Indeed, there are many fraud in our life. I have friend to be victim of sweepstakes. He even lose million rupiahs. They convinced him to believed that he won the sweepstakes and should transferred amount of money to certain bank account in order to pay the tax of prize. He then realized that he was a victim of fraudulent after several days transferred money but the prize never came. He has reported the case to the police but never received his money back.
I and my wife often received short message services (SMS) or phone calling from stranger that said I won the sweepstakes but just ignored them. So, if you receive SMS, post mail or phone calling, that say you are win the sweepstakes, always confirm it to the customer service or hotline service of the company to ensure the truth.
It never ceases to amaze me at how many cons and scams people can come up with to rob people.
I alwyas think that if they are so clever they would be better engaged in yusing their brains to make a legit business!
@Ceekay1989 (323)
• United States
12 Aug 10
aw thats low, damn sneaks get sneakier by the day. Sorry to hear that happend to you though! I hope that you guys can recover from it. Its so hard to trust people these days scammers are robbing us blind. what an unfortunate turn this world has taken.
@MrDollars (454)
• Australia
18 Aug 10
I am so sorry that you have been a victim of this sick scheme. Really terrible thing to go through. I can not say that I have been through this but I know not to do this kind of thing. Unfortunately for some people, they have to learn the hard way. I am very sorry again and wish you could just find that A-Hole and teach him a lesson.
All the best.
$-MrDollars-$
@TrvlArrngr (4045)
• United States
12 Aug 10
Wow. Thank you for warning us all! It is amazing the great lengths they go to in order to steal our money!
@nicholas143 (2)
•
12 Aug 10
I want to let you all know that fred and I have been the victims of credit card fraud this week and felt I should warn you all about the dever svam.
@cbar86 (80)
• United States
12 Aug 10
Tomitomi, thank you for the alert. I have heard of similar things going on in my neighborhood, but not quite as clever as this one. They really seemed to have all of their bases covered. It's amazing how far some people will go to steal from someone else. Again, thank you for the alert.
